A Guide to Self-Directed Learning
based on the Self-Directed Learning Handbook by Maurice Gibbons

If you’re reading this article, you’ve probably sat through a boring class thinking, “I could figure out way more interesting ways to learn this stuff”. Maybe you’ve been required to study a subject that seemed irrelevant to you, and have had to miss out on doing things you were really passionate about. But even if you’ve managed to gather the time, space, and support to pursue knowledge on your own terms, you may have a hard time getting past daydreaming about directing a film or cooking up mad scientist potions, and actually getting down to business. As the poet William Blake said, “I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man’s.” The SDL Handbook can help you get organized and set up a learning system that works for you.

While this book was technically written for teachers and principals, there’s no reason why students and youth can’t use it too. The idea behind Self-Directed Learning (SDL) is to give students as much control as possible over how and what they learn though independent studies, projects, artistic presentations, community fieldwork, and apprenticeships. With SDL, you choose your goals, create and follow your own learning plan, and figure out how you will evaluate your work. [something about the author]

As a young self-educator, I picked up this book and decided to apply a lot of the techniques it describes to my own learning. (details) This book is a really useful tool because it not only talks about the benefits of SDL, but also offers a detailed framework for actually doing it. I’ve written a brief summary of the principals outlined in the SDL Handbook in order to share its helpful advice with other youth.

Why SDL?

It might seem pretty obvious to most of us that figuring out our own way of learning things is better that having a teacher tell us what to do, but in Chapter 1 Gibbons explains exactly why. He defines SDL as, “any increase in knowledge, skill, accomplishment, or personal development that an individual selects and brings about by his or her own efforts using any method in any circumstance at any time.” He contrasts this with Teacher-Directed Learning (TDL), where a teacher is the one who decides the goals (like learning algebra) and methods (like taking tests). He says that SDL is important because it allows us not only to learn, but to decide what to learn, have our own reasons why we learn, and figure out how to learn. In other words, SDL helps us think for ourselves, a skill often overlooked in school. It helps us transform ourselves from followers into leaders.

Gibbons describes the principals of SDL programs, which include: using our emotions and senses as well as our intellects, integrating programs with a life of learning, the natural ways we learn, and the unique methods which each of us use to learn best. The core idea outlined in this book is the Learning Agreement, which is a plan describing exactly what you want to learn, why it matters to you, how you will carry out your plan, and how you will evaluate your work. I chose to focus on this agreement or plan in this guide, because I think it’s the best way to organize the ideas in this book into a step-by-step process.

SDL is flexible – whether you’re an honor student or a drop-out, you can apply some or all of these steps to your learning projects. All you need is the desire to learn and do things.

The Learning Agreement

Since this book is written for teachers working in a classroom environment, The Learning Agreement is described as an agreement between the teacher and the student. As a self-educator, you are both a teacher and student. So this will really be an agreement with yourself, and perhaps with friends and mentors. These are the parts of the agreement:

1) Goal
2) Vision
3) Plan
4) Challenge
5) Problem Solving
6) Management
7) Evaluation
8 Demonstration
9) Celebration

Setting Goals

Choosing your learning goals means that you need to think about what you want to learn and do the most, how much time and energy you have to devote to this goal, and how it might be connected to other goals. This might seem overwhelming if you don’t have clear long-term visions of where you want to be, but there are lots of ways to find clues about what to pursue. Think about people you admire and the abilities they have. Ask yourself what topics you are curious about. Come up with different aspects of a topic to study, and various ways you could go about doing learning more about them. See Resource B in the appendix for a quiz that can help you get started.

Your goals should be challenging and reasonable at the same time. You may need to change your goal later on because of unforeseen issues or new information that arises. That’s part of the learning experience.

Gibbons describes various educational goals that you can strive to reach as “outcomes”. He names seven ways to express outcomes:

o Knowledge (understanding and being able to explain information)
o Skills (having abilities in a particular field)
o Tasks (undertaking activities in a field)
o Experiences (participating or observing events)
o Competencies (demonstrating the skills you’ve gained)
o SDL Processes and Skills (skills needed for learning such as: critical thinking, planning, finding information and resources, problem solving, keeping organized, etc)
o Challenges or Passages (something to work towards)

Think about how you can express the topic you’re studying in terms of the outcomes you want to achieve. For example, you may be interested in learning about Mexican culture. You could express knowledge by knowing more Mexican history. Learning to speak Spanish or cook traditional Mexican food would be relevant skills. Your task could be to work in a Mexican restaurant. Participating in a Day of the Dead celebration could be a really educational experience. A major challenge or passage might be traveling to Mexico to do volunteer work. Of course, your learning plan might not include all these kinds of outcomes, but it’s good to keep a broad range of options in mind. Resource J lists some of the many ways you can learn.

Your Vision

Try to see how achievements in the short term will help you realize long-term visions. Let’s say that you really want to paint a mural depicting people and buildings, but you have little art experience. You need to break your long-term goal into smaller steps that build on each other. Maybe you’d practice drawing first, then study human anatomy to make your figures look more realistic. You’d also sketch buildings to understand the architecture better, and practice mixing colors. After that you might make more sketches of your mural idea until you come up with one you like. Once you have your space and materials, you’d be ready to paint. Gibbons describes thinking through plans like this as process thinking. Coming up with step-by-step processes for doing things is an essential part of SDL. Resource F has more info on processes.

Plan

This part of your learning agreement is where you basically design your own curriculum. Your learning plan will probably consist of experiences, studies, and activities. Make sure your plan is flexible enough to accommodate other parts of your life and new approaches you may choose to take in your learning. Think about people you can collaborate with or who can offer support. Try to be creative about getting resources like supplies, space, equipment, and cash. Click here for more tips on finding the resources you need.

One process for making a learning plan works like this: first break up your goal into parts. Brainstorm many ways to accomplish each part, and choose the ones that best suit your learning style, personal strengths, and interests. Put these activities in order. You can also create a progress measure, which describes excellent, satisfactory, and poor levels of achieving your goal. This will help you evaluate your work later.

Challenge

You may want to include a challenge in your plan. Ask yourself, “What would be an exciting, impressive, ambitious way to apply what I’m learning and take it to the next level?” It could be exhibiting your talent in an art show or performance, participating in a competition, holding down a job or internship, spearheading a political campaign, traveling to a new place, or anything else you can think of.

Gibbons also talks about Passages, which are challenges that extend over a longer period of time. He says that passages involve a new level of knowledge and skill and a personal change in the learner, that they mark the transition from one stage to the next, such as from adolescence to adulthood, and that they’re usually treated with recognition and celebration when they are completed. You may not be ready to design and complete your own passage right now, but keep this larger goal in mind for when you feel more prepared. Resource C describes the passage process.

Problem Solving

This section asks you to play devil’s advocate and look at difficulties in your plan, bad habits or tendencies in yourself, or other potential pitfalls, and come up with ideas for solutions you can use if they arise. This will help you prepare for these challenges ahead of time.

Gibbons outlines a process for solving problems:
1) State the problem clearly and exactly
2) Study the problem. List everything you know about the problem.
3) Brainstorm solutions to the problem.
4) Select the best solution.
5) Develop the solution for action. Outline how you will make it happen step by step.
6) Just do it.

Check out Resources E and G for more tips.

Management

Since you are your own teacher, you need to come up with your own structure for learning. Otherwise you’ll have a hard time taking charge of your goals, and might get discouraged and give up. But don’t worry, because there are lots of ways to stay organized and solve problems.

Managing you learning means making schedules, monitoring your progress, giving and getting support, and keeping track of your resources. Again I’m going to emphasis that you need to be flexible with yourself. You probably won’t follow the same daily schedule for the next three months. It might make more sense to make a new schedule each day to accommodate for the ups and downs in your life, keeping in mind a rough outline of your long-term goals. Other people can also help you stay on track. You may want to work in a team or have a support group of friends who can offer advice and feedback. Joining Learning Group might be a good idea. The forums are also a good place to get support. See Resource H for tips on working in a support group. Try to find mentors with experience and wisdom they can share. Keeping a learning journal that you write in regularly is a really good way to look at what you’ve done and where you’re going, not to mention record new ideas and keeping yourself focused. Documenting your work in either a personal or a group Omnibus not only records your progress, but also allows you to share it with others.

Evaluation

As a self-directed learner, you don’t have to take any pop quizzes or standardized tests. It’s up to you to come up with your own ways of judging your progress. Evaluation is how you get to know more about the ways that you learn and the obstacles you need to overcome, so you can improve in the future. It helps to have something to measure your work against, such as your original goals and the standards you chose for your progress measure when you wrote your plan, and the work of others.

Writing in your learning journal will help you understand not only the results of your learning projects, but also the process you followed to get them. Describe in detail everything you’ve learned from your SDL project. Try to get feedback from others.

Two other important evaluation tools are demonstrations and conferences. Demonstrations are ways for you to show people what you’ve learned in interesting and impressive ways. Conferences can serve various purposes like planning, troubleshooting, and reporting your progress.

Gibbons suggests that self-directed learners ask themselves the following questions as part of their evaluation:

o My attitude as a learner: How focus was I? How disciplined? How strategic? How committed?
o My approaches to the task. How skillful did I become? How effective was the approach I took? How organized was I?
o My ability to solve problems. How well did I identify difficulties? Consider alternatives? Develop solutions?
o My success. How good was the job I did? Did I meet my goals? My criteria for success? Can I see ways for me to improve this work?

Keep in mind that the achievements you’ve had in your SDL projects can make great material for a portfolio, which can come in handy if you’re looking into college and careers. You can use a huge range of materials, including the following: essays, reports, drawings, photos, videos, stories, songs, publications, photos or copies of paintings, sculptures, clothes, ads, architectural designs, report cards, awards, reading lists, and letters of validation. Many SDL students also create transcripts describing all their activities and accomplishments.

Then you can finally have a…

Celebration
If you’ve made it this far, you definitely deserve a celebration. Maybe you want to have a big party or a special ceremony. Maybe you’re so tired from all that learning that all you want is a 14-hour nap. No matter how you choose to celebrate, be proud of your accomplishments and keep looking towards the future.

Conclusion

Doing SDL gives you a foundation for being able to accomplish things in all areas of your life. Thinking for yourself, planning, managing your time, and staying focused are skills you’ll need to overcome any obstacle.

The Misled Youth Network is built on a foundation of learning and self education because these things give us the power to take control of our lives. We believe in the value of learning from our peers, and our website is set up so that you can pass on what you’ve learned to other young people, and apply your new knowledge and skills to collaborative projects. So really, this is just the beginning.